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it's some out there doing this they're pushing
the uh... shield act
as a way i love rectifying
the perceived
excesses
of the department of justice
who bring up
two months worth of of everybody's phone lines at the a_p_
people were not
supposedly involved in these stories at all
which
by anybody's account appears
to violate the department of justice is own guidelines as to when they can file
the secret subpoenas
we've said before on this program that
usually
when the department of justice is engaged in investigation like this
they tell the media outlet
we want your phone records
were subpoenaed thing them
and then the
the media outlet goes to court may start to negotiate
they try and find out if there's any other way that the department of justice
can get this information
they make sure that it's character
tailored narrowly
but what's clear here is the director department of justice
did not want to have any judicial review
they did not want to have to justify why they were looking for two months worth
of records
and why i they were getting the records of over a hundred reporters
when only four or five or involved in writing the story
they did not want this judicial review
they also did not want proof
that there was no alternative
to doing this in secret because they thought it would jeopardize the
investigation
they also did not want approve
that this had anything to do a national security
because this is a story
that they were going to announce the next day
and to the extent that they were z anything
that came out
that in any way
even arguably
was a threat to national security
it's quite clear
as marcy wheeler who continues to write to um...
i think most authoritative lee on this issue
road in
that she wrote this piece actually in the washington post
confined it through are going to uh...
fifty we'll dot net
but first off we know that the a_p_ before they were at that story on may
seventh twenty twelve
had gone to the white house has said
is there anything in here that's going to jeopardize nash scary in the white
house said no
the white house with where the story did ask them to hold onto it for a week as
they want to announce it on may eighth
the a_p_ said well if there's nothing here that's gonna impact nascar they
were to run with it
marwick on your schedual because that's when you wanna trumpet
now
according to marcy wheeler
the a_p_ story noted that the fourteen plot
this is the underwear bomber to plot
animating out of young men
seemingly contradicted earlier white house assurances
that there'd been no terrorist threats coinciding with the anniversary of
osama bin laden's death
then white house care counterterrorism chief
now c_i_a_ had
john brendan appears to have panicked
in a conference call with his predecessors before they were to go on
t_v_ to talk about the flow platt that would be plot
they'll be richardclark enough rain towns of the course
he explained why the white house said there was no threat on the anniversary
even while knowing the underwear bomber plot
it was that they had inside control of the plot quote
this was shortly after the anniversary of the bin laden takedown this ipl
brennan now explaining this conversation
during his confirmation hearings
i said there was never a threat to the american public as we had said so
publicly because we had inside control the plot
and the device was never a threat to the american public
to follow here
they essentially had eight
double agent
so one of the people on that call richard clark
who was then going out i don't know if he gets paid to go on uh... t_v_ as a
uh...
analysts are not does matter
but he went out and claim that the bomber
was actually an infiltrator
so they had inside control the plot
uh... maybe it was the bomber was actually a double agent it wasn't
working with the bomber where the ability make sure the bomber didn't use
the device
so a_b_c_ the next day
whom we have this consulting deal with said
quote in a stunning intelligent coup
a dangerous al-qaeda bomb selling yemen was successfully infiltrated by an
inside source
who secretly worked for the c_i_a_ and several other intelligence agencies
wheeler writes that this raaa revelation
which she says appears to have been almost entirely a direct result
of essentially a clue
not even a clue on mls an explicit knowledge mint
of john brennan's attempt to preempt any questions as to how
the white house could claim there were no plots
on osama bin lines anniversary but we fold the plot
that was scheduled for us on a bin laden's anniversary
expose sensitive details the plot including which countries had recruited
this infiltrator
yet according to brandon zone testimony during his confirmation hearing
will goes on
he said quote i am not a subject i'm not a target i'm not a witness
of the investigation into that leak
and wheeler points out by contrast the a_p_ sources
who may not have revealed anything beyond what the white house plan to roll
out the next day
do appear to be targets of an investigation
so what you have here is the department of justice
engaging in a sweeping subpoena powers
to avoid having to justify it in front of a car judge
because uh... presumably a threat to national intelligence
from a leak revealing sensitive issues
on which the only thing that seems to be this sensitive issue was actually
mistakenly
revealed by john bryant
now eric holder has claimed that you know anything about any of the way this
is going about
because he recruited to recuse himself because
he had to give up some of his emails
as part of this week investigation
yet he goes out the other day says
this is the worst leak ever ever
this was so dangerous because it revealed sensitive information he won't
say what it is
it's not clear
at all from the lease that may seven th a story
from the a_p_ that there was anything that was sensitive there
and the reality is none of this
would be as big of a scandal
if the elbow made ministration
did not already have any long record
of overzealous lee pursuing
leakers and whistleblowers even when they know they're in the wrong
even though they're thomas straight case
fell apart
the guy i ended up after six or seven years
because his case was started with the bush administration ever thought there
would be dropped
aka six seven years they've basically got him on uh... traffic violation of
what amounts to one
some misdemeanor
but they destroy his life
they're still going after uh... james rising
so i'm very happy to see that this is a scandal i hope it's pursued
because this is part of a larger hole that the obama administration has been
engaging in
just
an unprecedented attacked on whistleblowers and leakers
and the media
and now as an attempt to tamp this down
the white house has passed harry reid
to promote
the shield that
which was first introduced to the senate back in two thousand nine
buys chuck schumer and arlen specter
former democratic
senator of pennsylvania
at the time however according to charlie savage is peace
through september thirtieth two thousand nine
deal bombing administration told lawmakers that it opposes legislation
eka protec reporters from being imprisoned
if they refuse to disclose confidential sources who leaked material by national
security
this is how the au bon administration started out
arguing with democratic senators about their build that went too far protecting
uh...
members of the media
and there was a blowing sources
administration this week sent congress weeding revisions to the media shield
bill
that would significantly weaken it's protections against forcing reporters to
testify the bill includes safeguards that would require prosecutors
to exhaust other methods for finding the source of information before subpoenaing
a reporter
and would balance investigators' interest with quote the public interest
in gathering news in maintaining the free flow information
the administration wanted to change this
that such procedures would not apply to leaks of a matter deemed to cause quote
significant harm to national security we don't know
how that is deemed because
judges would be instructed to be deferential to executive branch
assertions
about whether early cause it was likely to cause such are
in other words no jesse judicial review
four our assessment
that this is bad enough for us
to prosecute into all these things
basically saying
the shield law we're just going to
short circuit in any way that we want
now it is true that the senators went forward with this
the democrats did but it was a quashed by the republicans
but job on the administration from the very beginning
wanted to make sure
that whistleblowers would not have access to media
because the media would be forced to testify as to who they work
that's what the o bombing administration's stance has been
since today
well
however many days
september thirtieth is from january twentieth in two thousand nine when he
was inaugurated
that's the thing you have to understand about this
obama did not know uh... what the justice department was doing in this
investigation yes i believe that holder may have recused himself
the bottom line is the obon administration started out their
administration
wanting to make sure
fed whistleblowers
did not have access to media because the media was going to be coward because
they were not gonna be protected from such things
you can speculate as to why
my speculation is
this is the administration i wanted to turn the page
on all the excesses of the national security state under the bush
administration
and that would've been very hard to do
had whistleblowers come out and continued to
tell us what went on there
so when we got a reports two months ago
from a bipartisan committee saying
we were absolutely torturing people it was systemic
and it goes up to the highest levels
of the bush administration
it's very likely we would have heard that information
far earlier
even though we did in many respects and in fact
the person who revealed that to us
is in prison now
not the people who proper traded that act
this is what this and this is what this a_p_ story
is really about
if the obon administration had not been systemically
attempting
to attend a whistle blowers and media who
within my contact them
over the past
five years
than his a_p_ story would been written off as an anomaly and that while that's
weird we're going to uh... sanction
the uh... assistant uh...
but terry giles
and a story but it was in and it's not
that's the real scandal
the